 | Conduit lands funding [updated]August 21st, 2007 |
For those of you who have noticed the name Nabeel Hyatt popping up all over the place in the MMO-to-Web sort of space over the last year, well, now you know what he’s up to — along with some Turbine and Harmonix vets. 
Conduit Labs, of which he is CEO, just announced landing $5.5m in Series A funding to do “social online entertainment”:
We want to deliver a completely new kind of massively multiplayer experience — one that requires minutes, not hours, to access and learn, and one that is as rich and social as real-world activities like shooting hoops or jamming in a band. And we wanted it all in a browser, as accessible as your email.
The Conduit Labs Blog has an informal take on how the company got going, and there’s coverage at 3pointD, at Read/Write Web, and of course at TechCrunch. Edit: Virtual Worlds News landed some interview tidbits.
Edit: two posts popped up with some more meaty detail. There’s Susan Wu’s post about why CRV funded Conduit, which discusses more the general space; and there’s a great interview of Nabeel at WorldsInMotion which digs deeper into what an actual product might look like.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
social networking / casual MMO hybrid”. I follow Susan Wu’s blog which has an entry discussing it (Link), but it’s getting attention on Mashable (Link), the Virtual News Network (Link), and – of course – onRaph Koster’s blog (Link). I’d be lying if I said I was especially interested in Conduit’s project. The whole social networking meme is getting a bit ripe, afaic. Maybe if they introduced virtual epidemics. Those things have certainly sparked
[...] Raph’s Website » Conduit lands funding August 22nd, 2007 [...]
[...] The news of Conduit Labs receiving US$5.5 million in series A funding is everywhere at the moment. The backers are Charles River Ventures and Prism VentureWorks, two venture capital heavy-hitters in Web 2.0 and virtual world circles. The story is being carried by 3pointD, Read/Write Web, TechCrunch, Virtual Worlds News, and Worlds In Motion. Personally, I first heard about it from Raph. [...]